In the current digital age, the trend is that more and more tasks involve use of information technology (IT) and digital media. As an example, digital books and e-book readers are becoming very popular and are supplanting printed books and other printed publications.
In addition, enterprises (particularly, large organizations) are starting to integrate provisions in its IT environment for printing from a mainframe or application server (e.g., Oracle, SAP, etc.) on a corporate network to a printer for visitors (such as a supplier, a contractor, etc.). On the other hand, facsimile, extranet or VPN (virtual private network) connection is frequently used for communicating between a corporate office and a supplier.
However, printing remains a part of many daily tasks, such as, for example, generating, finalizing and archiving legal documents, distributing pamphlets, brochures and other marketing literature, issuing receipts at brick-and-mortar establishments, etc.
The proliferation of mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, PDAs, other handsets, tablet computers, notebook computers, etc.) has created a need for users of such devices to be able to conveniently print documents from their mobile devices to a nearby printing device, rather than having to transfer the documents onto a computer that is configured specifically to print from such printing device. Indeed, many mobile devices today lack print capabilities. Thus, for example, if a traveling businessperson wanted to print out some of the notes that he or she took on a mobile device (or an e-mail, including optionally an attachment thereof) before a meeting, he or she would have to e-mail the notes to a web-accessible e-mail address and retrieve and print the e-mail at a public print center (e.g., FedEx Kinko's, FedEx, Mail Boxes, Etc., other public print facility, etc.). On the other hand, the information may be confidential, proprietary, or other otherwise highly sensitive, in a manner that deters one from obtaining a hardcopy at a public facility (and potentially exposing such sensitive information to the public).
There remains a need for an improved method of printing that allows visitors and employees at a corporate office, or traveling businessperson, to more conveniently print from a mobile device.